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Prysmian, the Italy-headquartered global cable company, said on Thursday it has been awarded the contract to build a submarine electricity interconnection between Italy and Tunisia as part of the ELMED project.
The tender was jointly issued by Italy’s transmission system operator Terna and Tunisia’s STEG. Prysmian said the deal includes a preliminary activation phase and is subject to conditions. “Once these are met, the contract’s value could reach about €460 million ($498 million),” the company said in a press statement.
The High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) subsea link will run between the Partanna substation in Sicily and the Mlaabi substation on Tunisia’s Cap Bon peninsula, reaching a maximum depth of about 800 metres in the Strait of Sicily.
Installation will be carried out by Prysmian’s cable-laying vessel Monna Lisa.
The 200-kilometre, 600 megawatts (MW) ELMED interconnector is mainly financed by the World Bank, EBRD, EIB and KfW, and is backed by a €307.6 million grant from the European Union’s (EU) Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) and $25 million of concessional financing from the Green Climate Fund.
The submarine cable is being co-financed by EBRD, EIB and KfW through a €125 million ($146 million) loan package while the substations and associated power lines is financed by the World Bank through a $268.4 million loan.
ELMED, which is estimated to cost €920 million ($1.08 billion), is expected to start operations in 2028.
On Thursday, Zawya Projects reported that work on $8.2 billion Italy-Tunisia-Algeria power link to start in 2027.
(Writing by Majda Muhsen; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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